Health Care - Assignment Example

Section/# Healthcare Overview: Questions and Answers What interested you about the history of health care? With regards to what interested me concerning the history of healthcare, this is a question that must necessarily engage more than one determinant in the answer. As such, the first aspect of healthcare’s history that interested me is the fact that this is one of the very few activities or job fronts in which the individual can make a definitive difference into the lives, welfare, and health of the individuals that one integrates with on a daily basis. Ultimately, a historical analysis of healthcare reveals that although the technology and means by which it has developed has changed in a drastic way over the past several decades and even centuries, the root and underlying goal that healthcare professionals have sought to engage with the patient has remained basically unchanged. This represents a strong ethical and moral basis which few other professions can claim (Schoenbaum et al, 2009). A secondary item of interest which has briefly been alluded to within the first determinant which has been measured is the degree and extent to which rapid technological change has redefined the means by which healthcare has been provided to the end patient. As a function of the rapid acquisition of knowledge and the synergistic effects that one discovery can have on many others, the ways that disease and health is understood can rapidly develop and provide an overall benefit to the end patient. What areas of health care are you interested in pursuing? Why? With respect to what specific areas of the healthcare profession I am interested in pursuing, this would be concentric around healthcare administration and patient advocacy. Although there are many aspects of healthcare that often come to mind when one considers making a direct and positive change within the patient’s life, healthcare administration and patient advocacy are oftentimes forgotten in lieu of the more seemingly glamorous aspects of healthcare (Miller & Stokes, 1978). This is an unfortunate fact due to the point that patient advocacy and healthcare administration form the backbone of current healthcare provision. Moreover, whereas all other aspects of healthcare integrate with the patient based upon a needs based approach and seeking to resolve definitive health concerns, patient advocacy and healthcare administration seeks to streamline the overall process and provide a neutral means of integrating these interventions. If one considers the growth and development of patient advocacy, this is a concept that has not come into its own within the healthcare profession until the past several years. As such, it helps to provide a key linkage between the needs and realities of healthcare administration and the means by which the patients physical, emotional, and spiritual concerns are met and established by the healthcare professional. In this way, it is something of a self correcting mechanism through which the healthcare industry can seek to provide a higher quality of care and a better integration with the needs of the patient (Longshore, 2004). Conversely, healthcare administration is also something of a self correcting mechanism whereby the overall level of healthcare provision to the consumer can be made more efficient. Which positive and negative health outcomes linked to demographic indicators intrigued you the most? The single most fascinating, and at the same time disturbing, trend that was noted after a review of the demographic linked indicators of health was the fact that the poor and otherwise disenfranchised within the United States are at a statistical disadvantage; not only for the availability to resources and quality of life but to the outlook for health (Black, 2007). Deviating somewhat from a strictly medical explanation, the reader can understand that the means by which society has evolved and the difficulties that the nation’s food supply exhibits with regards to the price and availability of cheap healthful foods is one of the strongest reasons why such a demographic reality is noted within the research. Whereas the poorer and less educated have limited funding to engage the necessary changes that would overall help to satisfy better health, the more wealthy class has exceptional access to healthcare and the money necessary to engage in a good diet, the poorer demographic struggles with access and the means to effect a positive change on their own nutritional intake. Naturally, the positive effects of the demographic indicators that have been listed is with regards to the way in which culture and demographics have shifted to create a greater level of access to healthcare and its determinants via subsidization and government social programs. What resources are there for finding more information on the history of health care in the United States? The first resource and determinant that the authors discuss which can be useful in integrating a further level of information with regards to the healthcare industry within the United States is that of the macro-sociological approach. The authors define this as a means of defining the United States healthcare system as more of a non-system than a system. By freeing up the definition in such a way, the author is able to point to the key underlying determinants that help to define this non-system. As the authors describe, one of the most valuable sources of health information that is currently available is that of the World Health Organization. Due to the sheer size and complexity of this database, it is possible for the researcher to uncover a vast level of statistics into various diseases, prevalence, and preventions that exist within the system. Similarly, a more basic statistical analysis that can be utilized is that of the individual hospital records which are available to the public. One of the most important determinants that the authors discuss is the difficulty associated with finding useful information with regards to historical health data. This is due to the fact that HIPPA and the changing regulation surrounding patient privacy have necessarily changed the means by which key information is able to be assessed by the researcher. However, regardless of this fact, the fundamental aspects of health statistics and access remain rather narrow and limited. References Black, N. (2007). Walking the history of healthcare. Clinical Medicine (London, England), 7(6), 558-561. Longshore, J. (2004, January 15). Healthcare History. The Nation, 4(2), 3-4. Miller, M. K., & Stokes, C. (1978). HEALTH STATUS, HEALTH RESOURCES, AND CONSOLIDATED STRUCTURAL PARAMETERS: IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH CARE POLICY. Journal Of Health & Social Behavior, 19(3), 263-279. Schoenbaum, S., Schoen, C., Nicholson, J., & Cantor, J. (2011). Mortality amenable to health care in the United States: the roles of demographics and health systems performance. Journal Of Public Health Policy, 32(4), 407-429. doi:10.1057/jphp.2011.42 Read More